From the Middle of Nowhere
by zeitgeistx
Summary: It's bad enough that one of them is running away from a relationship while the other is running away from the prospect of one. It's even worse that they find themselves stuck with an unwanted cargo that sends them on a crazy journey across Earl. Shizuru and Haruka friendship story. AU/OOC.


A/N: Hello everyone! zeitgeistx's back :D

A couple of (longwinded) announcements to make:

Firstly, my apologies to the readers who were hoping that I would update Red Chains. I really wanted to, and had actually spent an entire night planning out the rest of the plot, but when it was time to flesh it out, I was just... _stuck_. I can't explain more other than that I'm having a psychological barrier due to past "traumatic events".

Secondly, I'm trying to pick up drawing this year and I've done a cover art for Melting the Ice Maiden. I'm currently working on one for Red Chains, which will hopefully appease you Red Chains readers, but oh my goodness it's so hard... Anyway, do drop by zeitgeistx . deviantart . com (remove spaces please) if you want to take a look.

And thirdly, before some of you rant at the blasphemy of it all, I should highlight that this is _not_ a Haruzuke or Shizuka (or whatever people call it) story, even though I personally don't have an issue with such stories, haha. It is about the friendship between the two, and will have tiny (and I mean really tiny) bits of Shiznat and Harukino floating in the background.

While I know everyone loves romance stories, I've always wanted to write a friendship story between Shizuru and Haruka, not least because I think everyone needs good friends (and that's not counting your girlfriend/boyfriend). In any case, I'm not going to wax lyrical about this topic anymore - hope you enjoy this story!

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******Disclaimer: Mai Hime, Mai Otome and all their characters belong to Sunrise. **

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**One Big Mistake**

It was hot.

It was really, really hot.

As she waited under the scorching sun, fanning her little book to keep herself cool, she recalled one of those Zipang legends about an ancient hero shooting down nine of the ten suns in the sky, and thought that he should have done his job properly and gotten rid of all of them.

Her other hand reached up and pulled at the collar of her t-shirt, peeling the damp fabric off her sweaty skin. For the hundredth time that hour, she wondered how on Earl she managed to get herself in the position of a sunny side up sizzling on a frying pan.

_Well, let's see…_

She had been waiting for hours along the side of the road, but there didn't seem to be any buses going in either direction.

_Before that? _

She had overslept on the bus such that she missed her stop. When she frantically alighted, she realized that she hadn't just missed her stop; she had missed an entire country.

_Before that?_

She was seated comfortably on the bus, the warm breeze coming through the gap in the window lulling her to sleep.

_Before that? _

In the wee hours of the morning, she dragged her suitcase out of the door and left her (supposed) girlfriend of 5 years and the apartment they shared.

_Before that?_

She spent 1 year 6 months having a massive crush on her classmate, and another 2 years 8 months pretending to be said classmate's best friend when she really wanted something else.

_And before that? _

After 27 hours of labour, during which a woman nearly broke the record for the longest scream ever and a man was left with purple bruises all over his arms, a healthy baby was born.

Her name – Shizuru Viola.

Shizuru glanced at the book in her hand. Even the poor thing looked like it was wilting.

That's it, she decided as she uncrossed her legs and stood up from the suitcase, which she had been using as a makeshift seat. She's going to hitch a ride on the next passing vehicle, whatever it is.

Now, Shizuru was an attractive woman. In fact, she was so attractive that she only had to flash a smile and any hot-blooded man (or lady who swings that way) would have slammed the brake of their car and unrolled a red carpet for her to hop on.

The only reason she hasn't gotten a ride was simply because there wasn't much of a choice in the first place. She was stuck on a highway surrounded by a great expanse of semi-arid, desolated land that used to form the border between Lutesia Romulus and Lutesia Remus. After the unification of the two countries, it became just part of the United Kingdom of Lutesia.

And was affectionately called the "Middle of Nowhere" by the locals.

It also didn't help that she had been rather picky so far, refusing rides from people that seemed a little too over enthusiastic or "off" (which practically summed up everyone who had passed by earlier on). But the sun was getting to her.

Shizuru continued to pace around her battered suitcase, staring forlornly into the horizon. Just as she was about to plop down again in disappointment, there was a glint of light in the distance.

_Here's one! _

And yes there was one, as an image began to take shape. It was a mustard yellow Beetle, and even from far Shizuru could tell that it was looking very much past its prime. But hey, beggars can't be choosers.

A sudden panic ran through Shizuru as she realised that she didn't know how to hitchhike. Do you stick a hand out, or a finger out? Which finger? To be fair, it wasn't all her fault since the other vehicles had stopped in front of her even though she had not even raised a pinky. The oncoming car, on the other hand, looked like it was competing in the Meister Grand Prix and showed no intention of slowing down.

The humming of the car grew louder as she frantically contemplated whether she should be flagging the car down like taking a cab, or striking a seductive pose as she had seen from some of those shows on Channel Otome ("Where sexy can't get any sexier!").

Her frazzled mind decided to do both. Thus she was caught in an awkward pose, where her butt was sticking out at an odd angle while her torso was leaning forward, and one of her arms was raised upwards and bent like she was trying to mimic a cobra.

The car zoomed by.

_What the— _

_I'm not allowing myself to turn into crisp here! _

"H—Hey! HEY! STOP!" Shizuru shouted so loudly that she surprised herself. Perhaps her mother's legendary lungpower was hereditary.

The car came to a halt, sending billowing clouds of dust in the air.

Shizuru thanked all the planets and stars in the universe (save for the annoying sun) as she hurriedly grabbed her suitcase and dashed towards the car.

She panted lightly as she lingered in front of the door, waiting for the driver to give the signal that she could get into the vehicle.

The person at the wheel was a woman dressed in what seemed to be a white shirt with rolled up sleeves and black jeans. Her long and slightly wavy blonde hair swept past her shoulders, while her fringe was cut in a severe style that made her look rather imposing. The woman reached up and slid off her shades, revealing eyes of dark amethyst.

"Are you gonna get in or what?"

_My, what a rude person. _

But the fact was that she really needed to get out of the sun, lest she start melting literally. Shizuru forcibly kept her expression neutral as she opened the door to drop her suitcase in the backseat before clambering into the passenger seat.

"Thank you," she said with the sweetest smile she could muster in her less than pleasant mood.

The woman just raised her eyebrows as if to say "whatever". Shizuru resisted the temptation to beat her senseless with her suitcase.

A shift of the gears, and the car continued to rumble on.

"You got a name?" the woman asked gruffly as she tapped on the steering wheel. "And where are you headed?"

Given her polite upbringing, the hitchhiker was a little affronted by the brash manner she was being spoken to. She was, however, wary of offending the driver. After all, the last thing she wanted was to be kicked out of the car and back on the barbeque menu.

"My name's Shizuru Viola and I'm going to Cardair. You are…?"

"Haruka Armitage. Cardair? You're from there?"

"Yes."

"Thought so. Could tell from your accent."

Shizuru shrugged involuntarily. As long as she could remember she has had people mention her accent whenever they meet her for the first time. The topic to her was, lightly put, _boring as hell_.

"Where did you come from then?"

"Windbloom."

"Windbloom?" Haruka's voice rose in astonishment. "You're awfully far off the track."

The hitchhiker smiled sheepishly. "Well… I was supposed to take the bus till Florince and get on the high speed train to Cardair… but I overslept and ended up here."

Haruka let out a snort. "You mean you overslept for 2 hours?"

The hitchhiker frowned, but did not retort.

"Anyway, you're in luck. I'm not heading to Cardair, but I'm going to Aries so I'll be passing through Florince. That good for you?"

Shizuru nodded. "I'll take your offer, thanks."

"Alright then," the driver said as she put her shades back on. "And since we're gonna be stuck together on this journey for a couple of hours, I'm laying down a few rules. No eating, no smoking, and absolutely no touching of the radio dial. Do that and you're out of my car. Understood?"

Shizuru could only tip her head meekly. It was going to be a long, long ride.

* * *

"Doo, doo, dum, doodoo, doodoo, dadum," Haruka murmured as she thrust her chin back and forth with the music. She stole a glance at her passenger, who was staring out of the window with a pained expression, as if someone was scratching his nails on the chalkboard.

The hitchhiker clearly did not appreciate dub step, but Haruka was not bothered. It was her loss anyway.

Turning back to face the long, dusty stretch of road ahead of them, Haruka stifled a yawn. She was on her way back to Aries after a week long vacation in An Nam, and she had been driving since sunrise.

The vacation had been a last minute thing, and a last resort for her to have some time alone to think. She still remembered the look on her colleagues' faces when they heard that she was going on leave, having worked without taking any break for the previous 5 years. "Gobsmacked" was probably the word to describe it.

Unfortunately, all the so-called "alone time" and staring blankly at the ceiling in the hotel room only left her with nothing but the thought that it was in some serious need of repairs. She was now dreading what she would have to face back in Aries, and her brains were tired of trying to sort itself out.

As a matter of fact, Haruka was of the view that her brains must have been exhausted to the point of deliriousness that she would decide to pick up a hitchhiker.

With her striking yet fragile looks and alabaster skin, Shizuru was like a mannequin who belonged to a shop display rather than out roasting under the blazing sun. It was strange that she would appear in the middle of nowhere (no pun intended), and Haruka couldn't really care less to pick her up. That was, until the pseudo-mannequin shouted so loudly that she could hear her over the pounding music in her car. If anything, Haruka had some respect for those who could rival her when it came to lungpower.

That said, Haruka had met such beautiful women before, and frankly she didn't think much of them. At least Shizuru didn't seem like the chatty kind. Though it might have been due to the fact that she was once again playing the music so loudly that you would probably need a loudhailer to carry out a conversation.

Just as she was about to sneak another peek to see if her very silent passenger was still alive, Haruka spotted a stationary car ahead painted in the Lutesian colours of sky blue and white, as well as a man standing beside it and waving for her to stop.

The man was wearing a uniform of the same colour combination, and the design was unfortunate such that Haruka briefly wondered whether the Lutesian Police had intended their officers to blend into their patrol cars. Nevertheless, she tuned down the radio as she slowed the Beetle to a stop.

She wound down the window and leaned her elbow on the ledge. "Yes, officer?"

"Good afternoon, ladies," the man said pleasantly as he flashed his badge, "we are just conducting some routine checks. Would you mind stepping out of the car?"

A glance at the dashboard told her it was almost 6 o'clock in the afternoon, which meant that she still had about two hours to go before reaching Florince. Haruka grimaced. She was hoping to get to Florince before sunset, and time was running short. They were showing the last episode of _Love Eternal_ tonight and she really needed to know whether Rena Sayers was going to find out that Elliot Chandler was not two-timing her with Arika Yumemiya, who was actually their long lost daughter. Oh, the plot was utter crap but she loved Rena Sayers. The woman was strength and beauty combined, and had guts to boot—

"Ma'am? I need you to get out of the car, please."

"S—sure," Haruka mumbled as she unbuckled her seatbelt. She rolled up the window again, and saw that Shizuru had already gotten out of the car and was standing in front of the bonnet.

"I'll need your IDs or passports, please. And I'll need to check the inside of your car and your boot."

_Seriously_? Haruka raised her eyebrows as she got out of her seat. But she figured that it was not really surprising, given what had happened lately.

Much to her chagrin, the officer took his time scrutinizing both their passports, the inside of the Beetle _and_ their baggage. So as to speed up the process, Haruka decided to get the boot ready for inspection. The salesman had told her that the boot wasn't working and she would have difficulties opening it. But since the rental was pretty much dirt cheap, and she was only carrying a duffel bag, she had decided to hire it anyway.

As it turned out, the salesman was absolutely right. The boot refused to give way no matter how she pried. However, she was no ordinary person. She was Haruka Armitage: champion arm wrestler and weight lifter.

"Uggggggggggggh!"

The boot flew open and nearly smacked into Haruka's head. At the same time, there was a muted sound at the back of the boot, like a sack of marbles falling on the ground.

"Damn," she cursed under her breath, there was no way she was going to pay extra to fix the compartment! She mentally noted to give the salesman a piece of her mind if she ever passed by An Nam again. Her gaze swept around before noticing a black pouch.

"What is…"

She pulled open the pouch and took a look.

Her eyes widened.

She hurriedly stuffed the pouch in the back pocket of her jeans.

"Okay, ladies."

Haruka snapped to attention and turned around to see the officer approaching her. Behind him, Shizuru was leaning against the bonnet with a blank expression that Haruka took to mean that she was spacing out.

"I'll just check the boot and you will be free to go."

Haruka gulped as she took a step backwards, allowing the officer to pass in front of her. The man shone his torch and poked at all the nooks and crannies in the boot. Finally, when she felt like she was going to die from a heart attack, the officer straightened his back.

"Alright," he announced cheerfully as he closed the boot. "Thank you for your cooperation, ladies, enjoy the rest of your trip." The officer tugged at the brim of his cap and turned around to walk back to his patrol car.

Assured that he was at last leaving them alone, Haruka breathed a sigh of relief and turned too in the opposite direction.

"And ladies, just a reminder—"

Haruka froze.

"Hey… what's that in your jeans?"

_No shit. _

After a moment's pause, Haruka tossed her head around and glowered at the man. "That's sexual harassment, officer."

The man blinked in confusion, before his expression grew stern. "What I mean is _that_, that thing in the back pocket of your jeans."

A myriad of options rushed through Haruka's brain. In the end, she settled on what seemed like the most logical. She stabbed her finger at the sky.

"Oh look! That bird there is breaking the speed limit!"

And then she sprinted towards the driver's seat, shouting at her passenger, who was obviously startled by the sudden turn of events.

"Get in the car!"

"Wh—what?"

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Haruka slammed her door shut, and once Shizuru was in the car, she locked the doors. It was not a moment too soon, as the officer soon appeared beside Haruka's window, pulling at the door handle. Haruka jammed her foot on the accelerator.

"Stop!" he yelled, banging on the window, "I said STOP!"

When the driver paid him no heed, the officer let go of the door and ran back to his patrol car.

"What are you doing?" Shizuru shouted as she hastily grabbed at whatever part of the car she could hold on to while the Beetle surged forward.

"I'll explain later!"

* * *

The Beetle managed to travel a good distance before the wail of sirens could be heard. While Haruka had probably made a mistake with regard to the boot, and despite its appearance as an old rickety car, the Beetle had an extremely decent engine. It kept the patrol car more or less at bay, even though their pursuer was steadily gaining on them.

Haruka gritted her teeth. It was highly possible that the officer had called for backup, and sooner or later more patrol cars would turn up.

Thankfully, they came by one of those abandoned towns that were scattered along the highway. Shizuru, who had been clinging onto her seat for dear life, pointed at one of the buildings. "There! Get in that garage!"

Haruka quickly realised what Shizuru was getting at. She took a sharp left turn into the town and swiftly drove the car into the garage. Both of them then jumped out of the car and pulled the broken shutters down. They waited, breathing heavily as the familiar rumbling noise grew louder before fading away. Haruka carefully peeped through one of the holes in the shutters. When it appeared that the coast was clear, she and Shizuru lifted the shutters up again.

"Phew, we finally lost him."

Relaxing her tense muscles, Haruka spun around and saw that Shizuru was staring at her.

"Would you care to explain to me what just happened?" The latter's tone of voice was as if she was asking about the weather, but the hard look in her eyes said another thing altogether.

Haruka stuck her hands at hips. The woman had made it sound like it was her fault, when it wasn't. "This is not my car, I rented it. And when I opened the boot just now for inspection, this fell out." She took out the pouch from her back pocket and showed it to Shizuru. Before Shizuru could take a close look, however, she snatched the pouch back and pulled the drawstrings.

"What are they?" Shizuru continued to watch the pouch warily. She didn't like where this was going.

Haruka shoved the pouch back in her pocket. "Gems."

"Gems? You mean… rubies and sapphires?"

Haruka rolled her eyes impatiently. "Not gems. _GEMs_."

It took a few seconds before the thought sunk into her. "GEMs?" Shizuru nearly choked on the word, "_the _GEMs?"

The hitchhiker was in great shock, but who could blame her? For the past two weeks almost every newspaper and magazine in town, or the whole Earl, to be exact, had been plastered with news of how the GEMs were stolen from the extremely guarded and supposedly impenetrable secret safe in the Garderobe Institute of Science. Word on the street was that they cost a fortune not only because they were pretty to look at, but also because they had incredible powers of destruction. Although the public had no actual idea how they were supposed to be used, as one newspaper had speculated, they were equivalent to "bite-sized atomic bombs".

"What—How—"

"I can recognize those things anywhere," Haruka replied as she shrugged her broad shoulders, "I work for the AAF."

_The Aries Armed Forces?_

"Couldn't you have told them that? That you rented the car and all?"

"I've already told you, I'm part of the Arien army. How do you think it would look if I was found with these things at the back of my car?"

The shock on Shizuru's face was replaced by a look of incredulousness. "And the best solution you could think of was to distract the officer with a _speeding bird_ before taking off?"

Haruka shrugged again. "It worked, didn't it?"

Shizuru was teetering on the verge of hysteria. But to Haruka's amazement, the woman sucked in a deep breath, and suddenly her expression was placid. Haruka was almost impressed. Almost.

The hitchhiker took a step backwards. "Wait, how do I know if you're not lying to me? Are you even who you claim you are?"

Haruka gave a growl of irritation as she reached into her pocket for her wallet and took out a card, which she threw to Shizuru. "Here's my ID. And honestly, do I look like a bad guy here?"

Haruka could have sworn that Shizuru had raised one of her eyebrows in skepticism, but with a blink of an eye the only thing she saw was an unreadable expression on the hitchhiker's face as she scrutinized the card.

It felt rather awkward, and in the end Haruka grunted. "It's just—it's not such a big deal, okay? I just need to get back to Aries, arrange for them to be sent back to Garderobe, and then," she snapped her fingers, "problem solved."

Shizuru peered up at her with a strange look, and Haruka couldn't help but swallow nervously.

These had the power to blow up the entire Earl. _Three times_. Hello? Who was she kidding? Of course they were in deep shit!

Shizuru threw her two hands outwards in a "that's it" motion. "You know what, thank you, but I don't want any part of this. You can just leave me here; I'll look for another ride."

"You can't!" Haruka blurted out, catching even herself by surprise. Much as she would deny it, she felt a _teeny, weeny _bit guilty that the hitchhiker had been dragged into this, and if she doesn't get the woman to Florince, her conscience was going to torture her _forever_.

She cleared her throat. "Look, the plan is for me to get back to Aries ASAP so that I can sort this mess out, so I'm still going to pass through Florince. No loss to you, right?"

Haruka knew what she said made sense. The sky was rapidly darkening. No sane person was going to risk camping in these barren lands overnight.

Shizuru frowned. "Fine…" she eventually said. "But you'll drop me _before_ we reach Florince. I'll walk to the border checkpoint myself."

Haruka grinned. The woman was smarter than she thought.

As they made their way back into the car, and as the engine rumbled to life, they were oblivious to the fact that they both had the same thought in their minds.

Everything was going to go to plan, right?

_Right_.

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A/N: I think this will be a fun story, but well, that's just me... Feedback please! :)


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